A small passenger plane crashed into a home near Buffalo, N.Y., Thursday night.
New York state police said the aircraft was a 50-passenger commuter plane. Television reports said it was on a flight from Newark, N.J., to Buffalo.
It was just after 10:20 p.m. when the plane, believed to be heading towards the Buffalo Niagara International Airport, crashed into the home on Long Street in Clarence Centre, a small community just northeast of Buffalo, neighbours said.
Neighbours said the plane - which appeared to be a small propeller plane - came in loudly and lower than normal, before it hit the house with a loud bang.
...
A woman and her daughter said to be living in the home made it out uninjured and were at a neighbour's house. A man also lived at the house, but it wasn't clear whether he was hurt or not.
Sources said 10 people were hurt, but it wasn't immediately clear if anyone died.
Half an hour later, fire departments had arrived and put out the fire. The house continued to smoke, one of the plane's wings sticking up out of the remains.
"The house is gone. totally gone," neighbour Kelly Simkin told a local news station. "We really think it only landed on one house.
"It is amazing what this plane maybe could have done."
Forty-nine people reportedly died when an aircraft identified as a Continental Airlines flight crashed into a house in Clarence Center shortly after 10 p.m. last night, starting a huge fire which poured thick smoke throughout the hamlet.
Unconfirmed reports from a source at Buffalo Niagara International Airport said that the dead included 44 passengers, four crew members and a person on the ground.
County Executive Chris Collins said that there may have been as many as 50 people aboard the plane and crew members had reported mechanical problems as they approached Buffalo Niagara International Airport. Several injured people were taken from the scene to Erie County Medical Center for treatment.
